124
Constitutional History.
[chap.
Henry
makes peace
between his
uncles.
Bedford
goes back
to France,
June 1434.
Congress
of Arras,
had been made on the honour of either, and that he prayed
there should be no discord between them. The discord indeed
ceased, but Bedford immediately began to prepare for de-
parture. On the 9th of June he addressed three propositions
to the king ; the revenues of the duchy of Lancaster should be
applied to the war in F rance ; the garrisons in the march of
Calais should be put under his command ; and he should be
allowed to devote for two years the whole of his own Norman
revenue to the war1. The king and council gratefully agreed:
on the 20th he took his leave of them 2, and about the end of
the month he sailed for France. His game there was nearly
played out. After a conference with the duke of Burgundy at
Paris at Easter 1435, he was obliged, by the pressure of the
pope and his conviction of his own failing strength, to agree to
join in a grand European congress of ambassadors which was
to be held at Arras in August, for the purpose of arbitrating
and if possible making peace. The French offered considerable
Defectionof sacrifices, but the English ambassadors demanded greater : they
Burgundy. . j
saw that Burgundy was going to desert them, and on the 6th
of September withdrew from the congress. Burgundy’s de-
sertion was the last thing required to break down the spirit
Bedford’s and strength of Bedford. He died on the 14th at Bouen.
dCÛt/hy SβJ)^∙ -pʌ η **∣* η « η η η « -. , ʌ 1 1 ∙ .
ι4,1435. Duke Philip, relieved by Ins death from any obligation to tem-
porise, made his terms with Charles VII, and a week later
renounced the English alliance. Bedford must have felt that*
after all he had done and suffered, he had lived and laboured
in vain. The boy king, when he wept with indignation at
duke Philip’s unworthy treatment, must have mingled tears
of still more bitter grief for the loss of his one true and faithful
friend,
Resuitsof 339. With Bedford England lost all that had given great,
death. noble, or statesmanlike elements to her attempt to hold France.
He alone had entertained the idea of restoιing the old and
somewhat ideal uni'y of the English and Norman nationalities,
of bestowing something like constitutional government on
, Ordinances, iv. 222-226; Rot. Pail. v. 435-438.
2 Ordinances, iv. 243-247.
XVIIi.] Death of Bedford. 125
France, and of introducing commercial and social reforms, for
which, long after his time, the nation sighed in vain. The
policy on which he acted was so good and sound, that, if any-
thing could, it might have redeemed the injustice which, in
spite of all justificative argument, really underlay the whole
scheme of conquest. For England, although less directly ap-
parent, the consequences of his death were not less significant.
It placed Gloucester in the position of heir-presumptive to the
throne ; it placed the Beauforts one step nearer to the point at
which they with the whole fortunes of Lancaster must stand
or fall. It placed the duke of York also one degree nearer to
the succession in whatever way the line of succession might be
finally regulated. It let loose all the disruptive forces which
Bedford had been able to keep in subjection. It left cardinal Beauforfs
Beaufort the only Englishman who had any pretension to be Bedford’s
called a politician, and furnished him with a political pro-
gramme, the policy of peace, not indeed unworthy of a prince
of the church, a great negotiator, and a patriotic statesman,
but yet one which the mass of the English, born and nurtured
under tlιe influences of the long war, was not ready heartily to
accept.
For the moment perhaps both king and nation thought irritation
more of Burgundy’s desertion than of Bedford’s death, of Burgundj.
revenge more than of continued defence. Peace with France
would be welcome ; it would be intolerable not to go to war
with Burgundy. The chancellor, in opening parliament on Pariiument
October ɪoɪ, dilated at length on the perjuries of duke Philip ; ɪ433'
if he said a word about Bedford, it was not thought worth
recording : the only thought of him seems to have been how
to raise money on the estates which he and the earl of Arundel,
who also had laid down his life for the English dominion, had
left in the custody of the crown. The commons, who had
grown so parsimonious of late, granted not only a tenth and
fifteenth, a continuance of the subsidy on wool, tunnage and
1 Rot. Parl. iv. 481. John Bowes was speaker. It was called in pur-
suance of a resolution of council held July 5 ; Ord. iv. 304 ; Lords’ Report,
iv. 888.